


love and wholeness (all at once)

by LiveLaughLovex



Series: tomorrow’s precious memories [20]
Category: Blue Bloods (TV)
Genre: F/M, Fix-It of Sorts, Post-Episode: s09e20 Strange Bedfellows, Spoilers for Episode: s09e20 Strange Bedfellows
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-27
Updated: 2019-04-27
Packaged: 2020-02-07 05:56:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 926
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18614509
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LiveLaughLovex/pseuds/LiveLaughLovex
Summary: Post s09e20, "Strange Bedfellows." Eddie's loved Jamie just about every day for the past five years of her life, and she's pretty sure one of the reasons she's loved him so long is because, unlike most of the people in her life, he's never once asked her to be someone other than who she is or to want something other than what she wants.





	love and wholeness (all at once)

**Author's Note:**

> The title comes from a quote by butterflies rising: "I'm here wanting to know the shape of you, without having to lose my own, but just not yet knowing how. How to take you in, but keep me too. How to breathe love and wholeness, all at once."

Their drive home from the rescue shelter was made mostly in companionable silence, though Eddie could practically feel Jamie’s eyes darting in her direction every few seconds. She knew there were still issues they needed to discuss, still kinks that needed to be worked out. She also knew that, as long as they stuck with the rules they’d outlined earlier that day, they’d be just fine.

She hadn’t lied to Jamie when he’d asked about Annie after Sunday dinner. It really never had crossed her mind that they might be that little girl’s saving grace, her fighting chance, because they were in no way what she’d need in life. Not yet. But when it came to her own kids, to kids she and Jamie might one day have and raise? Well, when it came to that, her thoughts and emotions weren’t nearly as clear.

She didn’t want to leave children behind in the world, even knowing they’d never truly be alone, not so long as there was a single other Reagan left. But Jamie was right. It wasn’t just jobs like theirs that kept parents from coming home to their children at night. Normal people were involved in car accidents, hit by buses, murdered in cold blood. Normal people lived lives that were risky in their own way. The only thing was that normal people didn’t have to deal with overwhelming guilt at the mere idea of the worst possible thing happening.

“Hey,” Jamie murmured from behind the wheel, drawing her from her rapidly darkening thoughts. He smiled softly at her when she shot him an inquisitive look. “Just checking to make sure you were still with me. Looked like you were getting a little lost over there.”

“Yeah,” Eddie whispered, running a hand through her blonde locks and shaking her head, hoping to clear her mind with the movement. It didn’t exactly work. “Sorry. I was just – thinking, that’s all.”

“Okay,” Jamie replied, his focus returning to the road before them. “Anything you want to share with the class?”

“No,” she responded, waving away his concern. “No, it’s nothing you need to worry about.”

“If it’s bothering you, then it’s something I need to worry about,” Jamie argued quietly, glancing over at her. “You do remember what we talked about back at the shelter, right? About making sure we’re on the same page when it comes to the things that really matter?”

Eddie sighed. “Yeah. I know.” She hesitated for half a second. “I don’t know if it’s that I don’t want to be a mother. I mean, when you delivered that baby in the movie theater last year, when we saw that look on his mother’s face and I told you I wanted to feel that one day, I meant it. But back then, I thought that you and me, we were never going to make it work.”

“Yeah, I was a bit of an idiot back then,” Jamie agreed, eliciting a laugh from the woman sitting next to him. The simple sound was enough to make him smile.

“We both were,” she sighed, amused. “But that wasn’t my point. I never thought there’d be a chance that my kid could grow up without both parents. And, I mean, you’re stuck with me for life. I am in this for good. So now, there’s always going to be a chance of the worst possible scenario coming true, and I just – I don’t know if I could live with the guilt of that.”

“We’re not riding together anymore,” Jamie pointed out gently. “Chances of us both getting taken out on the same day, at the same time, they’re next to nothing.”

“I don’t think the kid’s going to congratulate us for only making them _half_ an orphan, Jamie,” Eddie said wryly. She shook her head. “I’ve gone down the rabbit hole, haven’t I?”

“Yeah,” Jamie agreed. “You have.” He focused on the road for several seconds before speaking again. “You know, I grew up the son of a cop, Eddie. And I always worried about him. I did. But the way he raised me, the person he taught me to be – he couldn’t have done that if he hadn’t worn the badge. And my brothers and sister and I, we didn’t resent him for what he had to do, because he raised us to know it was what he _had to do_. At the end of the day, he always made it home. Gramps and Danny, too. They’ve always made it home. So, yeah, the badge cost us Joe, and it cost us Linda, and those aren’t losses we’ll ever be able to forget or – or get over, but you’ve got to focus on more than the losses, babe. I mean, you’ve _got_ to. If you don’t, you’ll eventually forget what it is you’re living and fighting for.”

“Yeah,” Eddie murmured. “Suppose that’s true.” She smiled over at him. “I’m still not sure I want kids.”

“Okay,” Jamie replied evenly, no hint of anger in his tone or expression. “Then neither am I.”

“Just like that?” Eddie asked, surprised.

“Eddie, you’re the love of my life,” he informed her, his eyes meeting hers. “I would never want you to do anything you didn’t know, in your heart, you really wanted to do. So, yeah, I’m sure. We’ll talk about it when you’re ready to, or never at all, if that’s the way things work out.”

Eddie smiled brilliantly over at him. “I love you so much.”

Jamie returned her grin. “Yeah. I love you, too.”


End file.
